Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires

"The best in awhile, but might not be more than a rental."

Dynasty Warriors 5 Empire is the newest installment of Koei's continued effort to milk the Three Kingdoms era to its very last drop. This latest installment attempts to incorporate the button smashing qualities of the Dynasty Warriors series with some strategic planning elements of Koei's other long standing franchise – Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Let's see how this edition fares, especially in comparison with its predecessor - Dynasty Warriors 4 Empire.

Gameplay – There is a Free Mode in this game, just like Dynasty Warriors 5, but the meat of this game is its Empire Mode. There are a couple historical scenarios you can choose from, each resembling the balance of powers at that particular period. You can choose to control one of the selectable forces. The objective is obviously to conquer the whole of China within 100 turns (if you did enable the option). Each turn is three months/one season. But before you go to battle, you should perform some domestic policies first to ensure an easier battle. You can choose to listen to one of your office's suggestions, assign all your turns to one of your officer, or select policies yourself. Initially there are very few selectable policies, but as you adopt your officers' suggestions, new policies become available. After such season, there is a battle board allowing you to invade other forces, or defend your territory if it is being invaded.

Once in battle, it is pretty much the same as Dynasty Warriors 5. There are a couple of main differences though. The first one is you will not always be fully equipped with the best accessories, since each accessory can be produced only in some specific territories on the map. Secondly, you can command your fellow generals to attack or defend, which gives you a stronger feeling of a commander on a battlefield. Also, you can use strategies such as fire or ambush that you have prepared during the domestic phase. Different from previous editions which emphasizes on defeating enemy generals, the main focus in this game is to overtake the main depots / strategy points on the map.

Overall, the flexibility and variety offers on the domestic menu are a very nice upgrade from the limited options of the Dynastic Warriors 4 Empire. The option to command your fellow officers' target on the battlefield is also a good upgrade from the previous installments.

Gameplay 9/10

Sound – Basically the same thing as before, but a very good improvement is the option to choose battle music on the battle option menu. You can choose any of the DW 4/5/XL music, no matter the battlefield.

Sound 8/10

Graphics – Basically the same as DW5. But the lag that occurs in a huge crowd seems to be more noticeable than DW5. Overall, acceptable, but nothing impressive.

Graphics 7/10

Replay Value – There are the standard accessories/weapons/characters' stats to accumulate in this game. You can also collect generic generals. After you have finished a game, the characters under your force can be used by you in Free Mode or the fictitious Empire Mode.

Replay Value – 8/10

I assume most people who will play this game have also played the previous installments. With that in mind, this game does offer a nice change to the basic hack and slash gameplay, but it does get old very soon, since in essence it is still the same game. I will recommend a rental, despite my belief that this is one of the better DW in a long while.

Overall – 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/31/06